


Memory

by SwanFloatieKnight



Category: Arthurian Mythology, Parzival - Wolfram von Eschenbach
Genre: Anal Sex, Crack, Does this cound as incest?, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Explicit Sexual Content, Family, Heartache, It's his sister's husband after all, Late at Night, M/M, Memories, Sad, Smut, Sorry Not Sorry, deeper than I expected, i'm not sure, thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-27
Updated: 2019-10-27
Packaged: 2021-01-04 11:06:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21196649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SwanFloatieKnight/pseuds/SwanFloatieKnight
Summary: On Good Friday, a young knight shows up at Trevrizent's hermitage, and it is certainly not a coincidence that this knight is his nephew Parzivâl, the son of his dead sister Herzeloyde.But Trevrizent has  also painful memories of Parzivâl's father Gahmuret.





	Memory

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ganelon8](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ganelon8/gifts), [EnricoDandolo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EnricoDandolo/gifts).
  * A translation of [Erinnerung](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20650799) by [SwanFloatieKnight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SwanFloatieKnight/pseuds/SwanFloatieKnight). 

A/N: I posted this fic on Ao3, and on Ao3 alone. If you read this on any other website or platform, please consider that I did not consent to this.

* * *

The fire in the hermitage's fireplace slowly burned down, and Trevrizent saw clearly that Parzivâl was struggling to keep his eyes open. No wonder, after all he had been enlightened about the whole history of the Grail and his mother’s family within some few hours. The poor young man had to be tired as he had been riding through the forest on his own for the past weeks, and even now he could not offer him a real bed. Well, his nephew would have to deal with this now. After all, he couldn’t change it.

Trevrizent rose and said while getting a second blanket out of a chest standing at the wall: “Well, don’t you worry too much about the Grail, boy. You have laden heavy sins upon you. This single one should not trouble you too much.”

Parzivâl looked at him with doubt. “But Anfortas… and the Grail… and will I ever see my wife again?”

“Let us talk tomorrow, aye?” Trevrizent threw the blanket at him. “You can lay down to sleep there on the fir brushwood. We will have to share this bed, but if you feel uncomfortable about this, I can sleep on the floor just as well.”

“No, it’s all right with me.” Parzivâl pulled the blanket around his body and slowly walked over to the makeshift bed Trevrizent was pointing at. As soon as he laid down, he was fast asleep. The long journey, and especially the bitter cold that had set in yesterday had exhausted him.

Trevrizent watched his nephew lovingly, and yet his youthful, handsome face made his heart ace. How similar he looked to his mother Herzeloyde! His sister, who had died from the sorrow about her son’s parting. He wished so badly for Parzivâl that his search for the Grail and his wife would some day be successful. Maybe he had gotten lost on his way there, but he was not a bad person, and certainly he would find the right direction soon. One day, he would learn that God would forgive his sins. Even if this was a hard lecture. But Trevrizent was sure that it could not take much longer until Parzivâl found back to the right road.

His mother’s death though was not the only reason why Trevrizent could not look at his nephew without feeling a terrible pain in his chest. Because mainly, Parzivâl reminded him of his father Gahmuret. He had met his sister’s husband a single time, and had at once envied Herzeloyde for him.

With a quiet sigh Trevrizent stared into the last glow of the fire. Gahmuret… It had been only one night, a secret meeting, some whispered words that should never have been spoken. Then lips on lips, skin on skin, and feelings that would never truly fade…

_24 years earlier_

It hat been late afternoon already when Gahmuret returned to his tent, sweaty and tired, a crossbow over his shoulder and a dead rabbit in his hand. One of his knights had told him about a strange visitor waiting for him who had not been willing to leave, and he sighed inwardly. He did not feel like company at the moment. Actually, he would have preferred to wash himself and then lay down and be alone with his thoughts.

He had been thinking of Herzeloyde while out hunting. As much as he was loyal to his duke and even enjoyed going to war for him, he felt guilty about it from time to time. Loyalty to his lord was certainly important, but he also had to be loyal to his wife. His beautiful wife waiting for him in Kanvoleis, hoping for his return, praying for him… how could he ever have left her?

But then he saw the handsome young man sitting inside his tent waiting for him, and every thought about Herzeloyde was banned from his heart at once. Gahmuret only had to look at him, his red lips, the bright, curly hair, the gleam radiating from his skin, almost like a light – this man was of noble birth, and he was the spitting image of Herzeloyde. His smile was fascinating, it almost didn’t reach his lips, but only radiated from his eyes. Gahmuret nearly forgot how to breath.

“Good day, my lord.” The stranger had risen and walked a few steps towards him, while Gahmuret stood stiff as a stick in the entrance, still blinded by his beauty. Now he bowed to him in a courtly manner and added: “So you are the great Gahmuret Anschevîn, of whom I have heard so many stories.”

In embarrassment Gahmuret ran his hand through his hair. “Yes. Yes, that’s me. And who are you?”

The stranger smiled shyly. “My name, my lord, should not be said.”

“But I certainly know you from somewhere. Have we met before? At the tournament at Kanvoleis maybe?” Gahmuret now finally managed to overcome his motionlessness, made some steps into the tent and gestured towards the stranger to have a seat.

“Not that I knew of.” The man looked at Gahmuret smilingly while he pulled a sharp knife from his belt and started to skin and gut the rabbit. “But tell me, my lord, whither are you going?”

Gahmuret cast him a suspicious glance. “And yet I am certain that I know your face”, he murmured before he said louder: “To Baldac. My lord, the Bâruk, calls me to fight for him. I have served him for many years, it would be dishonourable to forsake him now.”

“I believe that.” Again, the stranger smiled his unique, fascinating smile that Gahmuret was convinced he knew from somewhere. “And as an honourable man you have to stand at your lord’s side, of course. What else is there to be expected from you?”

Gahmuret had now finished gutting the rabbit and threw it into an empty cooking pot that was standing next to the low burning fire. Then he turned back to his person opposite. He did not really know how to answer to this effusive praise, also because he didn’t know the other man, so he started questioning him in return. “And what brought you to Sevilla?”

“Oh, I am on my way to Rôhas, to a tournament. To win some hearts.” The man winked at Gahmuret and he could feel heat burning through his eyes right into his chest. “And what about you, Gahmuret? Are you only successful when it comes to rabbits, or do you show equal hunting skills in other parts of your life?”

This frankness left Gahmuret speechless at first. Did this stranger really flirt with him, right now, offering him something more than the exchange of polite words? He could feel himself blush. For a brief moment he thought of Herzeloyde, but he suppressed his feeling of guilt very soon. Right now, there was only this man for him.

“I… I don’t know how skilled I really am”, he finally managed to say. “But at times I have been quite successful already.” He felt himself starting to sweat profusely. And he really hoped that he had not misinterpreted the stranger’s innuendo.

“Oh yeah? And would you count me as such a… success?”

The look and the suggestive grin on the other man’s lips made Gahmuret shudder. He took a deep breath. “Oh, yes, definitely! The only question is… You do not make the impression to me that you are the one to get caught easily.” Slowly he began to enjoy their banter, as strange as it had seemed at first, and he even winked back at the other one.

“You could be right about this.” The stranger sighed and crossed his legs flirtatiously. “But maybe… I would even walk into your trap voluntarily.”

Gahmuret could feel his heartbeat in his throat, fast and hard. Was this man being serious? “That… would surprise me. But it wouldn’t be unwelcome, not at all.” He leaned a little closer into the other and the stranger really stretched out his hand to tuck a lose strand of hair back behind Gahmuret’s ear.

Nervously Gahmuret wiped his sweaty and still bloody hands on his trousers before he carefully touched the soft, neatly shaved cheek of the young man sitting opposite of him. Like in a dream, their lips moved closer to each other, they kissed slowly and tenderly. Gahmuret felt goose bumps creeping up his arms, he pulled the other man closer, onto his lap. A low, wanting moan mingled with their kiss.

The stranger pulled back his head and grinned cheekily at Gahmuret. “You are really impatient, huh?”

Gahmuret nodded, he put both his hands on the other man’s hips and wanted to pull him closer again. His cock was already hard from that little bit of kissing, and he couldn’t wait to finally see this young man lying naked and willingly in front of him, to take him, to cum inside him –

“But not here.” The stranger suddenly rose to his feet. “Here are too many people that could hear us. Come to my tent, tonight at dusk. Nobody must see you, promise me that.”

“How shall I wait for you this long?” Gahmuret rose, too, and pulled the other one into a short hug, kissing him again, hard and desiring.

“Oh, I’m sure you’ll manage.” With another wink the stranger made an attempt to leave, but Gahmuret grabbed him by the arm.

“Wait! Wait… I don’t even know where to look for you. I don’t even know your name.”

“You don’t have to know my name for this. Just walk towards the cathedral, and look for a tent with a dove as coat of arms. It is about a mile from here. You should be able to find it, if you are indeed such a great hunter as you pretend to be.”

With these words he left the tent, and Gahmuret stared after him, disappointed and longingly. His trousers already felt tight enough, and it was still some more hours till dusk. With a resigned sigh he slumped to the ground next to the fire and started to cut the rabbit’s meat into pieces and cook them. But he couldn’t help but think about this handsome stranger.

Who was this man that hadn’t wanted to tell him his name, but enchanted him with a simple smile? And why should they not be seen together? All these questions bothered him, and at the same time he had the strong longing for this warm body. He simply couldn’t get him out of his head…

When it was finally evening and darkness had fallen over Sevilla, Gahmuret sneaked out of his tent. He had taken a bath, shaved himself and even put on a fresh shirt. And now he was nervously on his way towards the cathedral. In the meantime he had gotten a suspicion about who this young man could be. This assumption made their meeting even more prohibited… and at the same time it made the stranger even more desirable in Gahmuret’s eyes.

Cool air rose from the ground, but his cheeks glowed with anticipation. He longed for this warm embrace that he had only felt for a short moment this afternoon. Now he finally wanted more.

He was afraid to walk past the tent with the dove in the darkness, and he also was afraid of asking someone for it, as the stranger had instructed him to keep their meeting a secret. But he found it, and when he entered it, he was greeted by the handsome stranger with a fierce kiss.

“So you did find me!”

“Yes… I did.” Gahmuret had buried his hands in the man’s long, golden locks again, breathing in deeply the warm scent of his skin. He seemed so familiar to him, everything about him… “Please, my friend, tell me who you are.”

The young man shook his head. “I am not allowed to.”

Gahmuret pulled him into a tight hug again, kissed his lips, his cheeks, his forehead. Then he finally whispered: “You are my wife’s brother, right?”

The stranger froze in his embrace, then he said quickly: “I don’t even know who your wife is.”

“Of course you know her. She is Herzeloyde, the Lady of Kanvoleis and Wâleis.”

“What makes you think she is my sister?” The young man blushed.

“So you are her brother?” Gahmuret felt a strange tightness inside his chest, an unknown tingling sensation, and at the same time the burning feeling that came from the certainty of doing something prohibited.

The other man sighed. “Yes. Yes, I am Trevrizent, Herzeloyde’s brother. He slightly shook his head. “I should never have done this. Come to you. Tell you my name. How did you recognize me?”

Gahmuret laughed quietly. “You are at least as beautiful as she is. When I saw you, you seemed so know to me. You look just like her.” He leaned in to kiss Trevrizent carefully, and the other one let him. “You have never done anything better than coming to my tent. Because I desire you far more than her.”

Then they didn’t talk much for the rest of the evening. They were lost in kisses and passionate embraces. Soon they laid next to each other on Trevrizent’s bed, limbs entangled. Gahmuret’s erection pressed against his partner’s thigh. Trevrizent moaned quietly and turned onto his back. Gahmuret kneeled between his legs, he leaned over him and continued kissing him while he stroked his shoulders, his chest, played with his hardened nipples…

Then, Trevrizent took a shuddering breath and pointed over to the table that stood in the middle of the tent. “There is oil… you can use this.”

Gahmuret only nodded, got up and moments later returned with the small bottle in his hand. Again, he kneeled between Trevrizent’s legs, then he began preparing him with oily fingers. At the same time he put his lips around Trevrizent’s hard cock, sucked and licked at the tip until the young man below him couldn’t help but moan every time his fingers moved inside him. So he pulled them back and slowly entered him with his cock.

Trevrizent closed his eyes when Gahmuret started moving inside him. He was slow and careful, had put his arms around him and kissed him as tenderly as he had done before. Gahmuret’s fingers had already made him wince, but now that he was fully inside, he could hardly hold his hips still. An unbearable tension was building up inside his lower abdomen.

Finally, Gahmuret gained some speed, Trevrizent threw his head back, his back arched and he wrapped his legs around Gahmuret’s hips. Every time he pushed into him he pulled him a little closer, he wanted to feel him deeper, harder. He wanted to treasure this feeling to hold this man close, the man he admired before all other people, the man with whom he had fallen in love at first sight.

Soon the heat and the tension became unbearable, his thighs shook and when he finally reached down between their heated bodies and took his throbbing erection in his hands he didn’t hold much longer. With a last, loud moan he came and his orgasm left him breathless and exhausted. He fell back onto the mattress and panted heavily.

He still felt Gahmuret moving inside him, now fast and hard and almost ruthless. Then he felt a rush of heat, Gahmuret’s cum filling him and his partner stilled, sighed quietly and pulled out of him, before dropping down onto the bed next to him.

Trevrizent reached out with his hand and stroked his dark, sweaty hair. “You’re beautiful…”

Gahmuret kissed him tenderly on the lips before answering: “And you as well… more beautiful than Herzeloyde…” He closed his eyes and huddled closer to Trevrizent, laid his head down on his chest before speaking again: “I thank you for tonight. But such a meeting… we shouldn’t do something like this ever again.”

Trevrizent nodded understandingly. “If our paths should ever cross again. I am not often allowed to ride out to tournaments.” He put his arms around Gahmuret lovingly. “I know, you are married to Herzeloyde and you will return to her if your campaign in Baldac goes well. And yet…” He lifted his head and kissed Gahmuret’s forehead. “I love you, Gahmuret.”

But Gahmuret didn’t answer, and the rest of the night they spent in comfortable silence with tender kisses and loving touches until finally they both fell asleep.

Early next morning they said farewell, without much being left to be said. Gahmuret put on his clothes, they exchanged a short, but passionate kiss and then he went back to his own tent. When Trevrizent came to visit him once again on the same afternoon, it was only to tell him that he would leave for Rôhas the next day. Gahmuret only nodded, not being able to say anything. He knew that it was better if they didn’t meet again. And it would be best if they never met again in their lives. But still, it hurt to even think about it.

He gave Trevrizent a large green jewel as a gift and even left his nephew Ither with Trevrizent to be his esquire. Then they embraced each other for the last time. Trevrizent couldn’t resist to give Gahmuret another small kiss onto the cheek, and Gahmuret sighed quietly and whispered to him: “Maybe not here… but in another world. I love you too, Trevrizent.”

_24 years later_

Then he had left. He had never again seen Gahmuret in his life, because his sister’s husband, Parzivâl’s father, had fallen only months later in Baldac. When soon after this Trevrizent’s brother Anfortas had, too, been wounded, he had retreated into his hermitage in the forest to do penance. Not only for Anfortas, who suffered greatly from his incurable wound, but also for himself. He was certain that God wanted to punish him just as well for his knightly adventures and his night with Gahmuret. And just like on Anfortas, his sins had left a wound on him that didn’t heal. Only it was his heart that was bleeding.

He had broken the laws of the Grail. In the end it even was his fault that Gahmuret had been killed. He still had the reliquary he had made out of the green jewel Gahmuret had gifted him. It reminded him painfully of his dead lover, but he had learned to live with this pain.

But now Parzivâl had showed up here, and this brought entirely new aspects of pain to him. He had never again been able to love another person in the intimate, passionate way he had loved Gahmuret. Parzivâl reminded him of everything he could have had. In another world. In more than only one.

He reminded him of Gahmuret in his fierce, passionate way of loving his wife Condwîrâmûrs. It was just the same way he had loved Gahmuret, and in Gahmuret’s eyes he had seen the very same desperate longing for him that he recognized in Parzivâl’s eyes when he spoke of Condwîrâmûrs. It made him miss the few hours of carelessness, nervousness and anticipation when he had been waiting for Gahmuret. And he thought of the brief time after that, in which they had been happily together.

But Parzivâl also reminded him of what he and Gahmuret could have had when he hadn’t fallen. Of a world in which Parzivâl had grown up with his father, and in which he had been able to live at Gahmuret’s side. In which Parzivâl had been rather his son than his nephew. In which Gahmuret and he would have lived together like husband and wife.

There was much that could have been. When fate had been less cruel, or Trevrizent hadn’t been bound to the Grail, or Gahmuret hadn’t fallen. With a dull look and aching heart Trevrizent stared into the fire. Certainly it was a sign from God that Parzivâl had come to him today, on this chilly Good Friday.

The stars were standing in the very constellation that brought cold and let Anfortas’ wound hurt even more. There was even snow, unusual for this season. And not only Anfortas was suffering unbearable pain today, also Trevrizent in his hermitage didn’t know how to soothe the cruel burning in his heart. It had been years since he had last remembered his night with Gahmuret so clearly and so painfully. And all of this just because of Parzivâl, who had shown up here in the forest out of thin air. Just like he had shown up at Munsalvæsche years earlier. Then, he had failed to redeem Anfortas. But now?

He risked a hesitant look over to his sleeping nephew. What if in the end, he was not only sent to bring Anfortas redemption, but also himself? Maybe, the time had finally come for a new king to take up the Grail’s heritage.

The longer he watched Parzivâl in the red shine of the dying fire, the lighter his heart felt. Indeed it seemed to him that the cruel wound that had been tormenting his heart and his spirits for twenty-five years slowly started to heal. He still missed Gahmuret terribly, and still there was much that could have been, but never became. But now, it felt less grave to Trevrizent.

Tiredly, Trevrizent rose. The fire had died, and the ashes were only glowing. It was time that he went to sleep and stopped having these depressing thoughts. Carefully as to not wake his nephew he laid down next to him onto the fir brushwood and pulled his woollen blanket up to his shoulders. At least Parzivâl was still alive. He would become the new king, and his father would have been proud of him. And this certainty was surprisingly comforting.


End file.
